PHILADELPHIA—People had been saying it all day, then Sarah Silverman stepped up to the microphone and said it to thousands of people in the arena and millions more watching on TV:
"And let me just say, to the Bernie or Bust people: You're being ridiculous."
Keep in mind that Silverman was one of Bernie's most vocal celebrity supporters.
The cheers were as loud as the "BER-NIE" chants were moments before. Rightfully so. The #NeverHillary crowd had been fired up going into this convention, but this past weekend's email leak—the one that proved erstwhile DNC chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz had been conspiring against Bernie all along to ensure Hillary secured the nomination—well, it made a bad problem worse. It gave conspiracy theorists a fresh sheet of Reynolds for their tin foil hats.
So Bernie's people clamored outside the gates under the hot sun in full force today. At last count, 55 protesters had been issued citations. Esquire's Charles P. Pierce went out there and conversed with some of them, and a few of them won him over.
But the ones inside? The ones interrupting an opening prayer? The ones willfully ignoring pleas from literally every single speaker on stage to suck it up and throw their support behind Hillary? Well, they're the source of conflict and disarray in a week when people gleefully thought there would be none.
Make no mistake: DWS did some serious damage. But now is the time for Democrats to appear more mature and unified than their Republican counterparts last week. One day into the convention, that's not really happening. But Sarah Silverman's mic drop, which will no doubt bounce around the Internet tonight and tomorrow morning, well, that might have just been the catalyst for change.
